


long story short (I survived)

by Ceara_Einin



Series: Saving What We Love - 2020 [4]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Leia Organa Needs a Hug, Leia taught Holdo so much, Memories, Minor Amilyn Holdo/Leia Organa, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, and turn them into strength, like how to take losses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-18
Updated: 2020-12-18
Packaged: 2021-03-11 00:42:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28156278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ceara_Einin/pseuds/Ceara_Einin
Summary: "Too many losses. I can't take any more.""Sure you can. You taught me how."Leia taught Holdo many things over the years - perhaps most of all, how to take losses. How to grieve. How to keep going no matter what. Holdo needs those lessons right now.
Series: Saving What We Love - 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2057262
Kudos: 5





	long story short (I survived)

**Author's Note:**

> Day 4 of #SavingWhatWeLove 2020  
> Prompt: We Have Everything We Need – Celebrate the characters introduced in The Last Jedi.

Amilyn stands with her back straight and tall as the last of the transports exit the hanger. It’s a risk, yes, sending the unarmed transports out into space to Crait, but it’s the best chance they have. The First Order is monitoring the _Raddus_ – they’re looking for large cruisers. Little rescue transports won’t appear on their scopes.

The hanger quiets, Holdo’s flowing skirts and pink curls hanging loose again. She’s always liked the gentle whisper of the light fabric against her legs. It’s good to be reminded of things nicer than war, and everyone needs their own pieces of light. Long dresses and bright hair are hers.

She doesn’t have to be done up in drab officer gear to have authority, to be respected. Leia taught her that. Leia taught her a lot of things.

_“Too many losses. I can’t take anymore.”_

_Holdo smiled, took Leia’s softly wrinkled hand in her own. “Sure you can. You taught me how.”_

Amilyn watched Leia endure countless losses over the decades. Her home world, her parents, her legacy (daughter of the deceased Lord Vader wasn’t the kindest headline on the HoloNews). Her son (to the First Order, but the stubborn hope in Leia’s eyes about Ben has slowly, slowly started to dim). Han, the closest thing to the love of her life (as far as Holdo can figure it).

Amilyn’s first loss came at the hands of the Empire. So many people experienced their first losses – family, friends, homes, planets – under the Empire. She wasn’t overly close with Captain Jardar, not really, but she worked with him closely enough that his loss sliced careful and dangerous under her collarbone. Amilyn knew the Empire’s evil long before then thanks to her time in the Imperial Apprentice Legislature. She _knew_. And yet it was a different thing, to lose someone she knew. To be taking orders from them one moment and taking over their post the next.

When Amilyn arrived back on base, she found Leia waiting in her quarters with bags under her eyes and two steaming mugs of caf in hand.

“Get it all out,” Leia said as she passed a mug into Amilyn’s chilled hands. “You dream of it less if you deal with it now.”

“Is that what you did?” Amilyn asked. Leia was still fairly fresh off Alderaan’s destruction, and somehow she kept going without so much as a stumble. Even when they still had the smooth faces of young women, Leia knew how to take losses and keep going.

Leia took a long draught of caf before answering. “I should have,” she said.

Leia was right. Amilyn missed Captain Jardar more than she thought, but sharing all her memories down to the most inane interactions lessened the sting, somehow. Kept him alive, kept his memory from burning her. Kept her fingers from itching at the ghost of his blood.

Later, much later, when Leia lost Han, Amilyn was the one in her quarters just after the celebrations for Starkiller’s explosive end finished.

“Someone once told me it’s better to get it all out now.” Amilyn set her mug of caf on the table and pressed the second into Leia’s hands. Age and grief had started to turn her fingers stiff, so Amilyn wrapped Leia’s fingers tight around the mug until her grip steadied. “I know this is worse, Leia,” Amilyn murmured. “If this isn’t what you need, that’s okay. But I think it might help.”

Leia cried into her caf for a few moments, but her eyes were soft and grateful when she lifted her head. “Yes,” she said, “I think it might.”

They sipped their caf in silence as Amilyn cast about for the right question, something bright enough Leia might smile at her ‘Holdo-speak.’ (Amilyn learned in the Apprentice Legislature how to speak more normally, but when she’s most at home, sometimes her old ways sneak back out.)

“Did he like caf?”

Leia smiled in spite of the uninspired question. “Supposedly. Han drank it like water – at least, the mud water the _Falcon_ ’s machine coughed up.” Leia sipped her caf again, her smile curling toward grief as she stared down into her cup. “He never liked any other caf. Said it was too bitter. Or too acidic, or too strong, or whatever other complaint he could come up with.”

Amilyn peered at Leia through the steam rising from her own mug. “Maybe he said it just to mess with you. He did that a lot, right?”

Leia breathes out something close to a laugh. “Constantly. We had a new fight for every standard week, and then some. But the times in between… those were worth all of it.”

“Like burnt sugar,” Amilyn offered. “Bitter, but sweet with the right pairing.”

“Both,” Leia said. “But the sweet times felt sweeter for it.”

Amilyn kept Leia talking until her tears came again. And when they came, Amilyn had a shoulder and a packet of tissues ready as she stroked back Leia’s hair and let the grief take its course.

“You’ll survive,” Amilyn murmured. “You’ll grieve, and you’ll remember, and you’ll miss him. But you’ll survive. You always do.”

And she did. Amilyn watched as Leia took her pain and turned it into strength, took her grief and hardened it into resolve wrought from too many losses. Just like she always had. Just like she always would.

Now, Amilyn has seen to it Leia will continue surviving.

Amilyn makes her way up to the bridge of the _Raddus_ , her silver bracelet cuffs cool and steady against her wrists. The transports stand out as small blue rectangles as they float toward the dim silhouette of Crait. Mineral planet, known for its emptiness and red soil covered in white salt. The Empire never managed to find the old Rebel base there; with any luck, neither will the First Order.

“Godspeed, rebels.” Amilyn whispers. Even a few decades after the Empire’s fall, they’ve still wound up fighting the same battles. But just like before, there’s a spark that even all the firepower in the galaxy can’t snuff out.

They’ll survive to turn the spark to fire. She’s seen to that. She’ll make sure of it.


End file.
